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Measuring & Mapping

Where, how far, and how much? People have invented an astonishing array of devices to answer seemingly simple questions like these. Measuring and mapping objects in the Museum's collections include the instruments of the famous—Thomas Jefferson's thermometer and a pocket compass used by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark on their expedition across the American West. A timing device was part of the pioneering motion studies of Eadweard Muybridge in the late 1800s. Time measurement is represented in clocks from simple sundials to precise chronometers for mapping, surveying, and finding longitude. Everyday objects tell part of the story, too, from tape measures and electrical meters to more than 300 scales to measure food and drink. Maps of many kinds fill out the collections, from railroad surveys to star charts.

The principal objects in accession no. 2012.0186 in the NMAH Modern Physics Collection are representations for public display of key magnet components of the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), a large U.S. Department of Energy particle accelerator facility that was under construction from 1990 to 1993 in Ellis County, Texas, approx. 25 miles south of Dallas. The SSC was designed to produce collisions of opposing beams of protons at energies of 20 trillion electron-Volts (TeV) for experiments to advance the fundamental understanding of matter and energy. The main accelerator ring was to be located in an underground concrete tunnel with a 54-mile oval path that would encircle the City of Waxahachie. The SSC project was terminated by the U.S. Congress in October 1993, largely due to budgetary issues. The object shown in the image is a display model of a short section of a parallel pair of superconducting dipole magnets in their vacuum vessels, cut-through to show in cross-section the cold mass sub assembly (beam pipe, magnet coils, collar, yoke) and the cryogenic system conduits and insulation.

Background on SSC magnet technology

The SSC main ring design contains the two parallel proton beam pipes, each under high vacuum and encased in powerful electromagnets, in order to confine the protons to travel in their respective, opposing, paths around the ring. The two proton beams are accelerated in opposite directions over many million transits around the ring using precisely-timed energy bursts from radiofrequency cavities. When the beams achieve the desired energy, they can be brought into collision in several experimental halls located around the ring, where highly sensitive detectors capture data on the resulting showers of subatomic particles.

A sequence of electromagnets produces the necessary magnetic fields to both guide and focus the proton beams. Dipole magnets produce the field configurations that bend the beams of electrically-charged particles (protons) on their track in the beam pipe around the oval ring, and quadrupole magnets produce the field configurations that narrowly focus the beams along the central axis of the beam pipes. As designed, the SSC main ring was to use 4,326 15.8 meter long dipole magnets and 1,012 5.9 meter quadrupole magnets.

High electrical currents are required in the electromagnet coils in order to produce the strong magnetic fields that are, in turn, required to guide the proton beams in their transits at such high energies. The SSC employs superconducting technology to enable essentially unhindered current flow in the magnet coils. The coils are wound with cables that contain superconducting wire. A strand of the wire contains filaments of niobium-titanium alloy embedded in a copper matrix. For superconductivity to occur in nobium-titanium, the coils must be cooled to extremely low temperatures. Thus, a cryogenic cooling system with liquid helium and liquid nitrogen blankets the coils and iron cores of the magnets.

A similar accelerator technology is used at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) now operating at CERN, the European Laboratory for High Energy Physics, in Geneva, Switzerland.

George M. Saybolt (d. 1924) organized the Inspection Laboratory of the Standard Oil Co., managed it for 36 years, and designed the "Universal Chromometer" for use with refined petroleum oils. Saybolt's instrument was adopted as a standard test by the United States Fuel Association (by 1919), the American Society for Testing Materials (1923), the National Petroleum Association, and the American Petroleum Institute. The C. J. Tagliabue Mfg. Co., then the major U.S. manufacturer of instruments for testing petroleum and petroleum products, was offering the Saybolt Universal Chromometer by 1919. The Fisher Scientific Co. of Pittsburgh assumed responsibility for the manufacture of these instruments in the early 1950s.

The Saybolt Chromometer has two vertical tubes, one holding a standard colored glass and the other holding the sample to be analyzed, both of which are seen through an eyepiece at the top. Using the cock in the sample tube, the operator can draw down the sample until the colors of the two tubes appear the same. The height of the sample at that point is an indication of its quality.

This example is marked "GEO. M. SAYBOLT / STANDARD UNIVERSAL CHROMOMETER / MANUFACTURED BY / C. J. TAGLIABUE MFG. CO. / BROOKLYN U.S.A." It incorporates some slight modifications that Tagliabue introduced in 1930, and that made the instrument easier to clean and use. The Stevens Institute of Technology donated it to the Smithsonian in 1960.

A wedge colorimeter contains two hollow wedges, one holding the sample and the other holding the standard. By moving the wedges up and down, one can vary the depth of solution through which light passes. W. Gallenkamp obtained a German patent (#62560) for the basic form in 1891, and Hans Heele in Berlin made several instruments of this sort. Richards & Co. in New York offered a “Gallenkamp-Heele’s Colorimeter” in 1896, noting that it had a “direct scale of percentage” that permitted very accurate readings, was “especially adapted for sugar factories, dyeing establishments, etc.,” and cost $85.

This example is marked “D.R.-G.-M. Hans Heele, Berlin.” It was made before 1923 when Heele’s firm was bought by Bamberg. The Department of Chemistry at Yale University donated it to the Smithsonian in 1960.

This is a modified version of the colorimeter devised by Jules Duboscq in Paris. E. Leitz, Inc., the American agents for the optical instruments manufactured by Ernst Leitz in Wetzlar, Germany, was selling this form by 1925 and describing it as a "Compensation Colorimeter and Hemoglobinometer involving the 'Buerker' Principle." Karl Buerker, the Director of the Physiological Institute at the University of Giessen, had published an account of a colorimeter with a "Huefner" prism in 1923. This prism, designed by Albrecht Huefner, brought the images of the two cups together in the eyepiece and insured that "both halves in the comparison field are of identical shade, obviating the minutest error which is so commonly found with colorimeters of other manufacturers."

This example is marked "Ernst Leitz / Wetzlar / No 255" and "Germany." New it cost $125. The Baker Laboratory of Chemistry at Cornell University donated it to the Smithsonian in 1960.

This 21" German silver hinged parallel rule has two small knobs for positioning the instrument. Brass round pieces cover the screws securing the two hinges. An indentation is on both blades at the center of the rule, with a line marking the center. The edges of the top blade are marked as a rectangular protractor, and the edges of the bottom blade are marked for nautical compass points.

The center of the top blade is marked: U. S. C. & G. S. NO. 331. The right end of the top blade is marked: CAPT. FIELD'S IMPD. The right end of the lower blade is marked: H. HUGHES & SON LTD. LONDON. The left end has the firm's "HUSUN" logo, with a sun above the letters and waves below the letters.

Capt. William Andrew Field (about 1796–1871) of England added a protractor and compass scales to hinged parallel rules in 1854. This made it easier for ship navigators to move the rule without losing track of the ship's course. Henry Hughes & Son made marine and aeronautical navigational instruments in London from 1828 to 1947 and incorporated in 1903. According to the accession file, the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey acquired this rule on August 21, 1919, and last issued it on September 5, 1922. Compare to MA*309662 and MA*309663.

This 21" German silver hinged parallel rule has two knobs for positioning the instrument. Brass round pieces cover the screws securing the two hinges. The edges of the top blade are marked as a rectangular protractor, and the edges of the bottom blade are marked for nautical compass points.

The right end of the upper blade is marked: CAPT. FIELD'S IMPD. The center of the lower blade is marked: U. S. C. & G. S. NO. H. 398. The left end has the firm's "HUSUN" logo for the London instrument maker H. Hughes & Son, with a sun above the letters and waves below the letters. A circle around the logo is marked: REGISTERED TRADE MARK (/) GT BRITAIN.

Capt. William Andrew Field (about 1796–1871) of England added a protractor and compass scales to hinged parallel rules in 1854. This made it easier for ship navigators to move the rule without losing track of the ship's course. Henry Hughes & Son made marine and aeronautical navigational instruments in London from 1828 to 1947 and incorporated in 1903. According to the accession file, the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey acquired this rule on November 6, 1923, and last issued it on February 16, 1924. Compare to MA*309661 and MA*309663.

This 21" German silver hinged parallel rule has two small knobs for positioning the instrument. Brass pins secure the hinges. The top blade is marked: U. S. C. & G. S. NO. 323. A fleur-de-lis or letter H appears above the mark. The edges of the top blade are marked as a rectangular protractor, and the edges of the bottom blade are marked for nautical compass points.

Capt. William Andrew Field (about 1796–1871) of England added the protractor and compass scales to hinged parallel rules in 1854. This made it easier for ship navigators to move the rule without losing track of the ship's course. According to the accession file, the U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey acquired this rule on July 23, 1919, and last issued it on March 18, 1920. Compare to MA*309661 and MA*309662.

This pocket-sized book, distributed by the firm of Jones and Laughlins of Pittsburgh, Pa., is particularly designed to assist customers of that manufacturer of “steel, iron, and nails, patent cold-rolled shafting, pulleys, hangers and couplings, &c.” The tables were compiled by mechanical engineer C. C. Briggs and, from 1898, revised by F. L. Garlinghouse. Surviving editions date from what may be the third edition of 1878 through the twentieth edition of 1942.

This volume is the eleventh edition, published in 1895. It includes some 487 pages of tables, listing such information for engineers as properties of various forms of iron and steel, material on the flow of water through pipes, formulae for the dimensions of small gears, information needed in the design of railroads, moments of inertia, bending moments and safe loads for beams, dimensions of columns, and strengths of bolts.

More mathematical tables deemed useful concern the circumference and area of circles of differing diameter; square, cubes, square roots, and cube roots of numbers; trigonometric functions; and the logarithms of trigonometric functions. More miscellaneous tables give rates of interest allowed in different states, interest tables, tables for conversions of weights and measures, the time in different places (neglecting the introduction of standard time), the amount of seed required to plant an acre of differing crops, and electoral votes cast in the presidential elections of 1884, 1888, and 1892.

The book of tables was received with a collection of drawing instruments. It is signed in ink inside the front cover: E. O. Hoffmann (/) 1573 - 30th St. N. W. (/) Washington, D. C. (/) 349 Carondelet St. (/) New Orleans, La. (/) U. S. Light House Service.

William Austin Burt submitted this model of his new equatorial sextant to the U.S. Patent Office in 1856. According to the published patent (#16,002), this instrument could be used to take azimuths, altitude, and time with one observation, and thus enable one to easily obtain the position and bearing of a ship at sea. Burt’s design was ingenious, but this instrument never found much of a market. Burt is better remembered for the solar compass that he introduced in the 1830s.

Ref: John S. Burt, They Left Their Mark. A Biography of William Austin Burt (Rancho Cordova, Ca., 1985), pp. 128-130.

This is a half shadow saccharimeter marked “Franz Schmidt & Haensch, Berlin S. No. 4645” and “D.R.P. No. 82523.” This firm began in business in Berlin in 1864 making saccharimeters and other optical instruments. It trades today as Schmidt & Haensch.

The two screws below the eyepiece indicate that this instrument has a double-quartz wedge compensation, a feature that relieves the observer from the necessity of checking the instrument against a standard solution or quartz plate. The German patent 82523, granted in 1895, describes the polarizer that enables the observer to equalize the darkness (rather than the color) of the various parts of the image.

The graduated scale, viewing scope, and 400 mm observation tube are missing. The additional inscription–“BS 482”–refers to the National Bureau of Standards, the organization that purchased this instrument in the early 1900s and transferred it to the Smithsonian in 1960. For many years the Bureau standardized the saccharimeters and other apparatus that customs agents used to assess the saccharine quality of sugar coming into the United States.